Ex Quotient: Are you Willing to Fail?

I'm up again past 1am because my brain is making connections and the "busy brain" syndrome won't let me fall asleep.

We went to a great fair yesterday focused on TINKERING! The Maker Faire in Fort Wayne was a gathering of people who enjoy tinkering, stretching their thoughts, experimenting, thinking outside the box, and playing with ideas. Creativity abounded! See our experience here.

As is my usual routine, I came home, worked on my college classes (I teach online) for a bit, wrote a blog post, and tried to go to bed. TRIED! Have you head of Multiple Intelligences and Emotional Intelligence? I have been talking about these concepts and different types of learners this week. My children happen to be in PEP classes at their school, which is a self-contained high ability program. I grew up in numerous places with pull out talented and gifted programs, though started in the PEP program in Elkhart many moons ago. In another online class I am teaching, we are discussing high ability learners as part of exceptional education (special education to most). My students are often surprised that high ability is included in special needs. Anyway, I had MI (Multiple Intelligences), EQ (Emotional Quotient)/EI (Emotional Intelligence), and IQ (Intelligence Quotient), and Tinkering floating through my mind as I went to bed and reflected on our day and children.

BINGO! Experiment Quotient! ExQ.

While we were in a HIGHLY creative place, I noticed a couple of things about these two young men!
At the end of the fair, the 4-year-old was highly involved in experimenting with his shadow. There was a willingness and interest in this. HIGHLY!  We talk about our shadows when we're out walking, but he was almost being a contortionist to see how his shadow would grow and expand as he shrank and contracted. I saw his mind thinking, his body twisting and turning, and the return to thinking as he made sense of it all. Then he revised his movements and started again.

The almost 7-year-old was willing to try things he never had done before. He let his body experiment with awkward positions and tried to find balance. He WELDED his own metal sculpture (with a little help from a professional). He was willing to TRY! I'm so proud of these guys for experimenting, for trying. The older two did it with science fair projects this last year, too. They were all collaborating earlier this week as they made catapults out of loose parts. My husband joined in after the fact.

Finding Nature in a Candy Factory

We recently stopped at Albanese Candy Factory and Outlet Store on our way back home from Fair Oaks Farm. I (who me?) was talking to a lady at the farm who mentioned a candy factory, so I thought we should check it out. It is located a short drive off of I-65 near Merrillville, Indiana. There is loads of other shopping in the area (too much for me!). They only source their food products from the US and Canada, which is good to hear in many regards.

2013--One Little Word: EXPLORE

I recently posted about our adventures in 2012 with the word GROW. Near the end of 2012, my husband mentioned the word EXPLORE. It seemed to resonate with the direction of several areas of our lives and what we're trying to put out there for our children. My husband and I met in Germany and both lived overseas for 6-8 years each, so we are lucky to have EXPLORED many parts of the world. However, life is still full of exploration and each new stage of raising children is seen through new eyes.

I checked an online dictionary for definitions of explore.

ex·plore  (k-splôr, -splr) v. ex·plored, ex·plor·ing, ex·plores v.tr. 1. To investigate systematically; examine: explore every possibility. 2. To search into or travel in for the purpose of discovery: exploring outer space. 3. Medicine To examine for diagnostic purposes. v.intr. To make a careful examination or search: scientists who have been known to explore in this region of the earth.

Wow! This really sums up what we want to do with this blog, in our personal lives, with our children, and in our aspirations to connect others with nature!

I also enjoyed looking at the synonyms for varying definitions of EXPLORE:
research, search, prospect, google (love that this is now a verb!), mapquest, re-explore, beat about, investigate, look into, pioneer, spelunk (this would be fun to do more of!), cave, map, diagnose, name, plum, put out feelers, travel around, tour, scout, traverse, range over, consider, examine, scrutinize, inquire into, research, inspect . . .

Since I love to research things, I investigated the term EXPLORE on Pinterest. What inspiration!

While there will certainly be an organic nature to our word EXPLORE this year, some things we hope to traverse a bit more include:

1. Do more geocaching, because it takes us to places we would never have discovered otherwise!

2. Investigate new preparedness skills, such as ham radio (for me and the oldest boy--my hubby is already an amateur radio geek), beekeeping, chickens, etc. My husband found a 13 in 2013 challenge. Maybe we'll look into this more. My husband got some homesteading books for Christmas!

3. Scout sources for more local foods. Scrutinize eating habits to include more whole and healthier foods. This might include growing food, connecting with local farmers, farmers markets, local restaurants, etc.

4. Inspect natural places in the Michiana area--what, did we just tour 6 Nature Centers in the last week? Guess we're starting off our explorations early!

5. Travel around as many water ways as we can nearby. While I went out on a nearby lake several times, my husband went down rivers with his group of boy scouts in 2012. I'd love to do this more as a family. We can do this with a baby, right?

6. Beat about the campfire and tent camping circles more.

7. Range over options on how to get outside with various ages of children, including a young one. He was out on a hike at 9 days old--we can keep this up, we hope!?!

8. Prospect new connections and continue cultivating friendships. Thanks for joining us in our journey!

Where else will we go? To the moon and beyond?

More inspiration . . . I've got "Roam where you where want to . . . roam around the world" by the B52s in my head. Yes, showing my age! "Stand in the place where you are" by REM is beating about my head as well!

Quotes on EXPLORE from Good Reads:

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” 
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.”
― Edwin Hubble

“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.” 
― Ansel Adams

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 
― H. Jackson Brown Jr.

“Nothing is pleasanter to me than exploring in a library.”
― Walter Savage Landor

“Life is an experiment in which you may fail or succeed. Explore more, expect least.” 
― Santosh Kalwar

“Come to the book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it and draw your own map.” 
― Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis